Jonathan W. Jordan - The War Queens: Extraordinary Women Who Ruled the Battlefield

A DVANCE P RAISE FOR

Th e wAr queenS

The War Queens reminds us intelligently, entertainingly, and powerfully, that strong-willed women have always been the equaland very often the superiorof their male counterparts, even in the field historically most jealously reserved for men: warfare. Rarely has Rudyard Kiplings incisive truth been better proven in book form, that the female of the species is more deadly than the male.

Andrew Roberts,
international bestselling author of Churchill: Walking with Destiny and Napoleon: A Life

The War Queens triumphantly tells the story of the astonishing women who fiercely led their nations into combat.... With impeccable research and gripping prose, Jonathan and Emily Jordan bring to life these fierce war queens and the many obstacles they faced while reminding us that whether they won or lost in battle, these extraordinary women earned their place in history as legends.

Cate Lineberry,
author of The Secret Rescue and Be Free or Die

Father and daughter team of Jonathan and Emily Jordan have crafted an immensely important and incredibly timely book that puts the spotlight on extraordinary women who led their nations in combat. A sweeping history that ranges across several millennia and continents, The War Queens takes readers from the stifling battlefields of ancient Egypt to the frigid waters off the Falkland Islands. Along the way readers meet a diverse cast of historical figures, from Cleopatra and Catherine the Great to Indira Gandhi and Margaret Thatcher. This book should be required reading for anyone who loves history.

James M. Scott,
Pulitzer Prize Finalist and bestselling author of Rampage and Target Tokyo

The War Queens masterfully captures the largely forgotten saga of warrior queens through the ages. With crackling prose, Jonathan and Emily Jordan brilliantly engages the readers by putting them on the throne of a pharaoh or in blood-soaked fields of battle. The legacy of historys killer queens is drenched with pathos and drama. Jordan, who is emerging as one of Americas finest authors and historians, narrates an epic filled with victory, defeat, and legendary women. Appealing to a wide audience, this book is a must-read for anyone who loves a gripping story. Its a sweeping, single-volume history filled with page-turning action and insightful, thought-provoking commentary.

Patrick K. ODonnell,
bestselling author of The Unknowns and Washingtons Immortals

A LSO BY J ONATHAN W . J ORDAN

Brothers Rivals Victors:
Eisenhower, Patton, Bradley, and the Partnership
That Drove the Allied Conquest in Europe

American Warlords:
How Roosevelts High Command
Led America to Victory in World War II

Lone Star Navy:
Texas, the Fight for the Gulf of Mexico,
and the Shaping of the American West

To The People of Texas
(editor)

Diversion Books

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New York, NY 10016

www.diversionbooks.com

Copyright 2020 by Jonathan and Emily Jordan

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

For more information, email

P. vii: THE QUEEN AND THE SOLDIER

Words and Music by SUZANNE VEGA

Copyright 1985 WC MUSIC CORP. and WAIFERSONGS LTD.

All Rights on behalf of Itself and WAIFERSONGS LTD. Administered by WC MUSIC CORP.

All Rights Reserved

Used By Permission of ALFRED MUSIC

P. viii Keystone Press / Alamy; P. 2 FALKENSTEINFOTO / Alamy; P. 130 The History Emporium / Alamy; P. 228 World History Archive / Alamy

Maps by Chris Erichsen

All other images in the public domain, except where noted.

Book design by Aubrey Khan, Neuwirth & Associates

First Diversion Books edition March 2020

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-63576-719-3

eBook ISBN: 978-1-63576-718-6

Printed in The United States of America

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Library of Congress cataloging-in-publication data is available on file.

Ive watched your palace up here on the hill,
And Ive wondered, Whos the woman for whom we all kill?

Suzanne Vega, The Queen and the Soldier

Women Waging War

F OR EIGHT MILLENNIA, men have won glory coaxing soldiers onto bloodstained fields to which only a few intrepid women have ventured. Fewer still left behind their stories of how and why they fought. Did they master rules laid down by their male counterparts? Does the mix of estrogen and testosterone matter when poured over a boiling battlefield? Is there an X-factor that makes women better suited to make life-or-death decisions on a mass scale?

Among the bones of the dead we unearth answers.

Historys killer queens come in all colors, ages, personalities, and leadership styles. Elizabeth Tudor and Golda Meir were high-stakes gamblers who gazed into the fog of war with an unblinking, calculating eye. Angolas Queen Njinga, possessing limited resources but unmatched ferocity, shed (and occasionally drank) blood to build a stable kingdom in Africas heart. The pious Queen Tamar embraced war as a natural part of life in the Caucasus, Caterina Sforza defended her childrens legacy in Italy with cannon and scimitar, and Indira Gandhi launched a war to solve a refugee crisis.

In the pages that follow, we sidle up to each commandress-in-chief in an intimate way, watching them smash roadblocks thrown in their paths. In life, they saw themselves as problem-solvers, not trendsetters or role models for future women. Their job was to crack the ribs of a crisis and wrench a still-beating answer from its chest. If war was part of the solution, so be it.

The thresholds these women had to cross to enter the power game were daunting. For most of civilizations long history, ceding sovereignty to a woman was a nations last resort, a necessary evil impelled only by a succession crisis or civil war. The sword was never handed to these women by benevolent, progressive-minded men; they wrested it from Arthurs stone. They fought for power, then fought to keep it, and when the battle trumpet sounded, they almost invariably faced a male foe. How they won, or lost, teaches valuable lessons as new leaders emerge from the political background and take their places on the front ranks.

W AR ADDS A RADICAL DIMENSION to the political leadership game. Like blackjack, winning one battle is comparatively easy, but beating the house over time bucks heavy odds. For every Napoleon or Alexander the Great, the earth holds the bones of hundreds of kings who galloped to the sound of battle and returned on a fleeing horse or shield. Similarly, for every Elizabeth I or Catherine the Great, we find women who gambled everything and came up short. By studying the military campaigns of queens, we glean a clear-eyed look at why some lost and others won.

Some of historys most successful war queens are hardly household names, even though their military accomplishments rival those of King Frederick or Tsar Peter, both known to posterity as the Great.